Momma's Girl

''Honey, I had a 15-room house filled with antiques,'' she proclaimed. So she was a pack rat, so what? ''It's not a matter of clinging to the past,'' she said. ''It's a matter of not throwing anything away.'' You never knew when you might need something. Then again, you can't take it with you. Oh, but maybe she could have tried. Really, she blames her son-in-law. Anyway, it was gone forever.

She began to hack and wheeze and bubble inside. Then she lit another cigarette. Lizzy hates it, but ''I enjoy smoking,'' said Grace, ''and if I'm going to die of smoking, so be it, I'm just going to sit here and die.''

Grace said that each of the two poems that Lizzy found was her favorite. ''The Right Touch'' was beside the bed, the empty house poem was on the hearth, and there was something by John Dryden on the mantel. Grace said that was her favorite, too.

I'm a little wounded but I am not slain,
I will lay me down for to bleed a while,
Then I'll rise and fight with you again.

It was Saturday evening, and Grace had been to the beauty parlor, but she was in bed where she always was when Lizzy rushed in with makeup.

''Jesus Christ,'' said Grace, ''where did you get this lipstick?''
''Mother, just put your lipstick on.''
The dogs needed food, said Grace. Lizzy pointed to the dish and said ''Food -- look, food!'' Then Grace asked why Lizzy had sold her things, and Lizzy left because ''you just can't breathe out here.''

When the photographer was ready, Lizzy came back, and they stood beside the button lady. Flash. Flash. Flash. The buttons began to fall off, and Grace stared at the floor, counting. Pick them up, she told Elizabeth. Lizzy said she would. It was the first time they had been photographed together since Lizzy was a little girl. "Oh wow," said the photographer, "I'll have to get you a copy."

''Thank you,'' said Lizzy.
''Be very nice,'' said Grace. ''Can I sit down?''
''One more,'' said Lizzy. ''Smile, mother

!''